Without this capacity to be of the heart with someone else, all perceivable commonalities are merely illusion.
Growing up, from maybe the age of 12 or so, every once in a while a girlfriend and I would make a list of all the qualities we dreamed of for our perfect man. Girls do this sort of thing. We would hope, or we’d heard some where, that if you write it out, it would help manifest this person into your life.
We also made lists of all the boys we’d ever kissed or hoped to kiss, conducted numerological compatibility tests with the letters of our names, and helped each other devise (often complex, sometimes absurd) strategies to get the boys we liked to ask us out.
But despite all our mental deliberations, projections and daydreams about our potential true loves and soul mates, I eventually learned the truth about what it means to connect with another person.
The people in your life that are your true loves, soul mates, and partners (in romance, friendship, creative endeavors or whatever), are the ones with whom you share a resonance of heart.
Although it can be nurtured and nourished so that it may grow, it is something that is as natural and fundamental as the heart itself. The heart (as I understand it) is the gateway of the soul’s expression of itself. And, despite our earthly and even spiritual entanglements, the soul is of “Divine” essence–pure and transcendental. When we really connect with another person, it is this source of our being that is communicating…or… “communing”.
All the other things on our lists of what we want in a partner, collaborator or friend are only external factors. For it is only love that binds us to another person. Without this capacity to be of the heart with someone else, all perceivable commonalities are merely illusion.
We never know what kind of person will touch us. They may appear to not be our style, or have very different religious or political beliefs, social, ethnic or cultural background, social status, education, projects, hobbies, causes or past-times.
The factors that make up these aspects of a person’s identity are not necessarily a reflection of who they are inside. Or there are many reasons that a person chooses to identify with some things over others.
People and their motivations are complex. Whatever is driving them, if they are not connected to the heart of their own being, if they are not kind and compassionate, loving and respectful of themselves, of others and of life in general, no true commonality, or communion, is possible.
The old Bob Dylan song “Gotta Serve Somebody” comes to mind now so I’ll go with it…
You may be an ambassador to England or France
You may like to gamble, you might like to dance
You may be the heavyweight champion of the world
You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You’re gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody
Call it serving God, if you want, but if you’re not allowing for the love of your own heart to guide you, it will be pretty hard not just to be yourself, but to really be with someone else. This doesn’t even mean that you have to call your life sacred. But only that you live it that way.